Live Nation employees described ticket buyers as “so stupid” and joked about “robbing them blind” in private messages from the company’s internal Slack account.
The exchanges were collected as part of a 2024 antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which was tentatively settled earlier this week. Live Nation would be ordered to open ticketing deals to other vendors and to pay up to $280 million in damages.
The two employees were Florida regional ticketing director Ben Baker and Virginia regional ticketing director Jeff Weinhold, according to The New York Times.
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“These people are so stupid. I almost feel bad taking advantage of them,” Baker reportedly wrote after customers paid $199 for “VIP Club Admission” at a Kid Rock concert in 2022. The Times said Weinhold responded: “I have VIP parking up to $250 lol.”
Also in 2022, Baker appeared to openly mock ticket buyers who added a “premier parking” option that netted an unnamed venue some $666,000 in 2021. “Robbing them blind baby,” he wrote, according to the report. “That’s how we do. … I gouge them on ancil [ancillary] prices to make up for it.”
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“Because this was a private Slack message,” Live Nation said in a news release, “leadership learned of this when the public did, and will be looking into the matter promptly.” They argued that these comments should be excluded from evidence at trial, describing this as an “irrelevant” private exchange that did not reflect company policy.
Lawyers from the U.S. Justice Department countered that the messages instead “provide a candid, contemporaneous look into how they view the prices that Live Nation charges fans for ancillary services at their respective venues.”
The federal government was joined by attorneys general from 39 states and the District of Columbia who said Live Nation and Ticketmaster had maintained an illegal stranglehold on the live entertainment industry, leading to higher prices for consumers amid fewer alternative options.
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